Healthy Silicon Valley

Healthy Silicon Valley (HSV) is an obesity prevention collaborative in Santa Clara County that focuses on optimizing the health and wellness of Silicon Valley residents. HSV is made up of over 100 organizations and individuals. The collaborative uses the Spectrum of Prevention as its organizing framework and focuses on environmental change strategies and the built environment. HSV uses a multi-sector approach, and has resulted in the development of nine sectors including the Afterschool Sector, the Community Sector, the School Health Sector, the Early Childhood Sector, the Food Providers Sector, the Government Sector, the Healthcare Community Sector, the Media and Marketing Sector, and the Nutrition and Physical Activity Sector. Each sector has its own focus and goals, which contribute to the overarching goal of HSV. Efforts across sectors have focused on environmental change strategies involving systems change. Healthy Silicon Valley has multiple goals and desired outcomes including (1) increase knowledge and awareness about healthy behaviors such as physical activity and nutrition; (2) increases in physical activity and healthy eating for children and adults; (3) increase identification of persons with pre-diabetes and diabetes; (4) slow the upward trend of overweight and obesity; (5) improve health-related quality of life; and, (6) increase the fitness level of 5th, 7th, and 9th grade students.

The overarching goal of the Healthy Silicon Valley collaborative is to increase nutrition and physical activity opportunities by positively changing the built environment.

The Healthy Silicon Valley collaborative has multiple goals and outcome measures within each sector, which were created to gauge the success of planning efforts and the implementation of interventions. A formal evaluation of the collaborative has not been published; however, since its inception, HSV has expanded and now includes nine sectors, two sub-sectors, and is involved in all aspects of the community, from education to food providers and the media, each with their own goals related to increasing the health and reducing obesity within the community.